


Trying to Save Face and Daddy Heartbreak

by ChloeWeird



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Catholic Sheriff Stilinski, Coming Out, Father-Son Relationship, Future Fic, Homophobia, M/M, Religion, Secret Relationship, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6545446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWeird/pseuds/ChloeWeird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All his life, Stiles has kept a part of himself hidden from the most important person in his life: His dad. Now, his love for Derek has grown too strong to be hidden. What will his father think? And if the Sheriff can’t get past his prejudice, does Stiles really want to call him his dad?</p><p>(Loosely inspired by Heaven by Troye Sivan.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trying to Save Face and Daddy Heartbreak

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: It isn’t my intention to offend anyone with this fic. I’m not trying to imply that all religious people are homophobic, or all homophobic people are religious. This is just an exploration of what it might have been like for Stiles to come out to a Sheriff Stilinski who was deeply religious. 
> 
> Please note, I am not Catholic. I have relatives who are, but google has provided me with more information than they have. If I messed something up, please don’t hesitate to let me know, and I’ll do my best to correct it. 
> 
> Stiles’ internal struggle (and the title) is inspired by [ Heaven by Troye Sivan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQC7B_D0oY), and John’s reaction is based on the true story of a friend of a friend of mine.

There was nothing Stiles enjoyed more than the feeling of being warm and cozy when the air was chilly on the outside of the blanket. He pulled the duvet higher up on his shoulder and almost snuggled deeper into the warmth of the bed before his sleep-slow brain figured out there was a reason that he was awake, and it wasn’t his bladder. 

He felt clumsily across the sheets to find his phone and press snooze for 10 more minutes of blissful semi-consciousness. He was very close to falling back to sleep completely, but the guilt set in quickly and he grabbed the phone and turned up the brightness to try to keep himself awake. Just because Stiles had to get up at 6 freaking AM didn’t mean Derek had to suffer through the bleating of his alarm going off for half an hour before he dragged himself away. 

After checking Facebook, Twitter and his email, he was pretty sure he wasn’t in immediate danger of falling back to sleep again, so he put the phone back on the nightstand and flipped around to see Derek on the other half of the bed. 

Derek didn’t feel the same way about being bundled up on a cold day. Derek was always warm, and left most of the blankets to Stiles, even on weeks like this one, when the temperature dipped closer to freezing than he thought was fair, given that he’d just moved away from New York where the weather was likely 10 times worse. 

This morning, Derek had kept just one sheet, which was draped as artfully over his bottom half as if he’d been posed there by a life drawing class. The rest of him was naked to the chilly air in the room and to Stiles’ roaming eyes. 

This was the only part of waking up at stupid o’clock that Stiles actually enjoyed. Being forced to get up at this time meant that he got to wake up before Derek, and see him like this. Relaxed, sleep-tousled and unselfconscious. Vulnerable. Like this, unaware and without the armour he donned when the sun rose, Derek was bare in a way that he rarely appeared outside of their bed in the early hours. 

It was difficult for Stiles to look at him, if he was completely honest, because Derek was so beautiful. The sleek, hard lines of his body were bowed in places and concave in others, like a negative picture of Derek’s waking posture. There was something about the slack curve of his lips and the absence of worry lines around his mouth and eyes that took his everyday attractiveness to an otherworldly level. That beauty, combined with the blue-tinted light from the loft’s windows made him look like a cold, solid statue that was so realistic, it could come alive at any moment, crafted into Stiles’ perfect mate. 

Stiles wanted nothing more than to stay. To keep himself awake until Derek swam to consciousness and be the first thing Derek saw when he opened his eyes. Be the cause of Derek’s first smile, as well as at least three more throughout the course of the day. (That Derek smiled more often recently wasn’t an accident. He had a mouth made for smiling, Stiles had decided, so he spent a fair amount of effort coaxing them out of Derek’s lips, whether he was present for them or not.)

Instead, when the time on his phone clicked over to 6:15, he’d force himself to throw back the heavy covers, put his feet on the freezing cold floor and drag himself away from the warm, comfortable haven of Derek’s bed on Sunday morning. 

Because while most normal people in their timezone would be asleep at this time on a weekend, the Sheriff of Beacon Hills was not. He was at work, and would be until 7AM when the changeover happened. Stiles had to be home before then, because if he wasn’t, he’d have to explain where he was. Because he didn’t think an honest answer to that question was something he could tell his dad. 

But most of all? Because he was coward.

**

John Stilinski didn’t hate anyone. Stiles didn’t think his dad had it in him to truly detest a group of people simply because they belonged to that group. He was the type of guy who shook his head at terrorist organizations on the news and expressed his shock that they started them so young. He also put in his ear plugs without complaint when Mr. Hunt next door started mowing his lawn at 6AM on a Saturday morning, while Stiles contemplated how to get away with murder with a police officer in the same house. 

So, it would be completely unfair to say John was homophobic. He would never march in protests against gay marriage, or like hateful, ignorant facebook statuses. That being said, he was a product of his generation. He held certain ideas about what sort of person a gay man was, how they acted, what their values were. It was possible that he didn’t always agree with their “lifestyle.” Quite possible. 

Stiles’ problem was that everything he knew, or thought he knew, about about his dad’s opinion on queers was conjecture. In his 23 years of life, Stiles had never actually sat down and asked his father point blank, “How do you feel about the concept of homosexuality in homosapiens?” Funnily enough, the moment had never really been right. 

They’d skirted around the topic, sure. Hard not to, when LGBT presence was growing in the media, in the country, even in their own little town. Gay people, gay rights, the idea of gayness came up from time to time, but was glossed over and forgotten almost as quickly as it popped up. 

John once asked Stiles if anyone gave Danny trouble at school, then hummed neutrally at Stiles’ response. (No, never. Not with Jackson around.) Another time, a deputy sent them an invitation to her daughter’s coming out party, an occasion they hadn’t fully understood until they saw the explosion of rainbows alongside the neatly printed address. (They’d both had other plans, but Stiles never found out whether his dad had RSVP’d “Thank you, but no,” or “Hell no.”) Stiles couldn’t be sure if he’d imagined his dad’s frown deepening when he’d reached the paragraph of his infamous Circumcision Essay that dealt with the statistics on contraction of HIV/AIDS in men who were cut or uncut. 

Then, there was the disastrous night at Jungle, and “Not dressed like that.”

The funny thing was, before the whole werewolf thing, Stiles had worried that keeping such a secret, one he hadn’t even fully admitted to himself, would tear him and his dad apart. It had been, in some ways, a relief to have a much larger, more dangerous secret to keep, that shoved the other one aside so he didn’t have to think about it too hard. Except in the darkness of his own bedroom, on the rare nights he wasn’t worried about Scott or the pack or any of the people/things that were trying to kill them. On quiet nights, when everything had gone better than expected, he’d had the time to wonder why Lydia had been the only girl he’d ever obsessed over, why he could come easier to his own imagination than the dirtiest het porn he stumbled on, or why he’d dreamed a few times about Scott’s cinnamon brown skin the summer he turned 11. 

Stiles didn’t think he would have made it through the epiphany that was his college experience without Scott. He was the first person Stiles had said the words out loud to, after he’d let go of the white picket fence future he’d mapped out with Lydia. Away from Beacon Hills, out of his family home for the first time and suddenly making new, exciting plans, he was forced to find out what it was he wanted. And whether what he wanted was something he could allow himself. 

“I might be gay,” Stiles had whispered at 4AM in the darkness of their dorm, the last weekend before Christmas break.

What he meant was, _I’m definitely gay._ So was the dude he’d hooked up with a few hours before, but that guy had been out. Proud, and wearing his queerness like a badge that said _Fuck with me, I dare you._ So Stiles had, and that guy had seen right through him with his laser blue eyes. Shotgunning with a skinny joint became a debate on the merits of gendered bathrooms became angry kissing in the host’s spare bedroom. 

Stiles had felt more alive in that paisley wallpapered shoebox than he ever had on Lydia’s bed, or in Heather’s basement. Then, in his own shoebox, hung with posters and mementos he’d brought from home, he felt sick, and worried, but so, so relieved to have confided, however timidly, in his best friend. 

Their arms and legs were pressed tight together on one side, because twin beds really weren’t meant for two people, and Stiles was hyper aware of everywhere they touched. In the next few milliseconds, he waited for Scott to move. To shout _what the fuck, man?_ and walk out of Stiles’ life. Stiles had no logical reason to think that he would. Scott had been one of Danny’s staunchest defenders when he’d come out, and his backpack proudly bore the LGBTQ Ally pin he’d been given during frosh week. 

Scott never walked out. He said, “Oh, that’s cool,” and passed out from the combination of too many jello shots and exhaustion from finals week. 

There would be time for talking about their feelings and reassuring each other that they’d always be brothers. The time had not been right, at 4AM, drunk off their asses and crammed into a too small bed, but it had worked out anyway. 

Stiles spent more than one evening throughout the next few years of his college experience crying into Scott’s shoulder or kneecap over the fear that his father would never be able to accept that part of him, and that if he ever found love, he’d have to keep it hidden or lose the only blood relation he had left. 

The thing was, John was a man of religion. He didn’t get to church very often, because it so often conflicted with his work schedule. He wasn’t young anymore, and he could seldom face the idea of waking up early on a Sunday morning after pulling a double on Friday and Saturday, which was what happened more often than not. 

John Stilinski had been raised in a strict Catholic family, the first generation born on American soil, and while he wasn’t as devout as an adult as his parents had been, he had a bible on his nightstand, a cross around his neck, and a habit of bending his head in prayer before he went to sleep, whether that was at 11PM or 11AM.

Stiles’ mom had been the same. Stiles had learned all the kid-friendly versions of the old, old stories from illustrated books in her lap. He’d gone to mass with her every Sunday for his whole childhood, until her illness. He’d had his first panic attack in a pew at her funeral, during the final absolution. He’d refused to go with his father after that, and his dad had put up surprisingly little fight. Stiles hadn’t set foot in a church since then, not even to Christmas Eve mass, which he’d loved as a child. Losing that tradition was worth never having to stare up into the disappointed face of crucified Jesus again. 

That shit was too dark for Stiles to bear. 

Now, Stiles checked “Not religious” on survey questions, and held in all the biblical analogies his mom used to use, and had displayed all over the house on cross-stitch patterns. His mother’s bible was still pretty good reading, though. Stiles, of course, read it cover to cover when he was 10, and he’d enjoyed it as much as any young boy enjoyed stories of bloodshed and questionable sex acts, but it hadn’t held any answers. If anything, it had delayed his self-actualization by a few years. 

It didn’t matter much anymore. Stiles graduated and moved back home, gay panic (mostly) behind him. He was in the middle of a campaign to badger the head of the archives department at the Beacon Hills Public Library into giving him a job. As soon as he was successful, and he earned first and last months rent, he planned on moving out of his dad’s house. They loved each other, but after so many years of freedom from cohabitation, they tended to get along better from a little more of a distance. 

Derek, of course, had offered his place, rent free, but Stiles had refused. This thing they had was still so new. They’d known each other for years, obviously, and had probably been attracted just as long, and although Derek was it for Stiles, and it hurt to look at him sometimes because he was so full of sappy, squishy love, he didn’t want to rush that step. When his future lease ran out, though, he was planning on getting used to life in a loft. 

That was, if he could get the balls to admit to his dad he was seeing Derek. 

Stiles hated, absolutely detested the fact that Derek would be out to his family, every single extended cousin, if he could. And Stiles, who still had one close relation left, refused to, because he was scared shitless. 

Derek deserved better. He deserved someone who shouted their relationship from the rooftops, flaunted it in grocery stores and public parks. Instead, he got romantic dates a whole county over, and Stiles sneaking out so he could beat his dad home to avoid awkward conversations. Derek was so used to Stiles ducking out that he didn’t even stir in the mornings. Whenever it happened, Derek would sleep on as Stiles gathered his clothes and buttered a bagel for the drive home. Sometimes, he’d give a sleepy snort when Stiles kissed his shoulder, but he’d always roll over and ignore Stiles as he let himself out. 

It was wrong. Stiles wanted lazy morning sex and shameless sex hair. Dates in Beacon Hills’ most romantic spots, like the patio of Applebee’s. He wanted to give Derek that.  
But first, he had to grow the courage to take the gamble that his father might not love him anymore. 

**

When Stiles pulled up in front of his dad’s house, the cruiser was in the driveway.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, pulling down the visor to peer in the mirror and see if he could bullshit having gone for an early morning jog, or something else more plausible. He was in the same clothes as yesterday. There was a faded, but still plainly visible hickey on his neck. His lips looked like he’d been getting friendly with a vacuum cleaner. 

“Fuck,” he said, again. 

John Stilinski had the job he did for a reason. He’d been the best deputy the department had seen in years, one of the youngest ever elected sheriffs in the history of Beacon County. If he saw the state of Stiles, he’d have a very good guess about where he’d been. He’d be wrong, but not by much. 

Stiles let his head thunk against the steering wheel. Maybe fate would be on his side. His dad might be busy in the living room or upstairs when Stiles walked in, or just be too distracted to notice Stiles’ clothes. Maybe he’d be asleep. (Unlikely. Even after all these years working insane shifts, the Sheriff still couldn’t crash until he puttered around the house for an hour or two.) Although, fate--or God, some like his father might say--was just as likely to be against Stiles. Maybe this was destiny’s way of giving him the kick in the ass he needed. 

He sat in the driver’s seat for longer than he should have, considering he was trying to avoid suspicion. He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to beat his head against the dash, since he knew from experience that while it should feel suitably dramatic and angst-ridden, it was really just awkward and left him with a bruise on his forehead that was tough to explain away. 

When he finally pulled himself together, the walk from his vehicle to the front door seemed like the last walk to the executioner’s block. (He wasn’t going anywhere near an analogy about the walk to Calvary. No way.) The door was unlocked, dashing Stiles’ fragile hope that his dad wasn’t actually home, he was just hitching a ride with a deputy. (Unlikely. His dad was as much of a control freak as he was.)

He let himself in and his dad was sitting at the kitchen table. From the doorway, Stiles could see that his dad was wearing a button-up shirt and tie, and his good shoes he went to court in. In this costume, with it’s ironed cotton blend and carefully shined leather, his dad wasn’t just an upstanding citizen. He was a good Catholic. 

The Sheriff looked up from his two day old newspaper and immediately flicked back down again. Though he wasn’t looking at Stiles anymore, Stiles could see his lips curl into a knowing smile. 

“Good morning,” the Sheriff said. 

“Mor--” Stiles stopped and cleared what felt like a mountain of sawdust from his throat. He realized he hadn’t spoken much that day. “Morning.” 

“There’s oatmeal left on the stove if you want some.” 

Stiles smiled, proud of his dad for choosing something heart healthy without Stiles even having to nag. It didn’t even matter that he’d probably smothered it with whole milk and brown sugar. It was the thought that counted. 

Some oatmeal did sound pretty good, actually. The bagel he’d grabbed earlier didn’t seem to be sticking to his ribs. He briefly weighed the pros and cons of escaping up to his room, but his hunger won out. It wasn’t like he could take back what his father had already noticed. 

He puttered around the kitchen while his oatmeal warmed up in the microwave, getting a spoon and the milk and grape jelly to put on top, smiling as he thought of Derek’s disgusted face the first time he’d witnessed Stiles eat this combination. He leaned against the counter while his bowl spun around and asked his dad, as if the answer weren’t obvious, “You going to mass?”

“Yep. Missed it three Sundays in a row last month, so I figure I’d better go if the opportunity presents itself.”

“I thought you were working all night.”

“I switched with Morrison. His wife went into labour early a few months ago, so I finally cashed in the one he owed me.”

“Morrison. Is he the one with the red-headed family?” 

“Yeah, that’s him.” The Sheriff folded up his paper and passed it over to Stiles, pointing out the birth announcement on the classifieds page. “He’s got a new carrot-top baby to add to his collection of gingers.” 

“What does that make now? Three?”

“Four. The guy’s crazy for kids. Did I tell you what happened to him at the last career day he went to?” 

The microwave beeped, and Stiles sat down at the table with his dad, chuckling as the anecdote unfolded. It was nice. A quiet early morning chat. He and his dad had always been able to talk to each other, excluding those few years where Stiles didn’t know what to say, because every word brought him closer and closer to spilling the werewolf secret. That was behind them now, and they were back to their great relationship. The two of them against the world. 

Except that he still felt like Schrodinger’s cat. This easiness, the routine they’d fallen into, depended on Stiles never lifting the lid of a certain box. By not broaching the subject all these years, he managed to not have to find out if his dad would approve...or not. They were fine the way they were until the cat was out of the bag. Maybe it would be fine, and his dad would tell him he’d known all along and that nothing would change. Or...not. 

Despite the burn of low-level stress, he had a nice breakfast with his dad. He got the latest harmless gossip from the station and the assurance that the deputies he’d spoken to were still guilting his dad into eating right. After scraping the last bit from the bottom of the bowl, he got up to wash out his bowl. (Oatmeal and sugary milk became cement when it dried. Stiles found this out the hard way when he started having to wash his own dishes.) 

“So, you gonna tell me who she was?”

Stiles dropped the bowl into the sink, the spoon clattering loudly against the glass. _Shit._ For a moment there, he thought he might have misjudged how fucked out he looked. He purposefully relaxed his shoulders and slowed his breathing down. His dad had no reason to think he was doing anything other than what most straight, single, twenty-something males did on Saturday nights. He turned back to his dad, leaning casually against the counter and plastering on a cheeky, sheepish smile. “Hook up. You don’t want the details.”

“Hmm.” The Sheriff’s fingers tapped against the table, but he didn’t lose his _gotcha_ expression. “So, a ‘hook-up’ was what kept you away all night for my past five night shifts?” 

Stiles lost his grip on the counter, sliding off and bashing his elbow. “Ow. What can I say, the stars have aligned for me, recently. You put out an APB for the jeep or something?” 

If he did, he and Derek were screwed. There weren’t many logical reasons he could come up with for parking outside Derek’s loft and staying there all night, a couple nights a week. 

“No, I wasn’t spying. Mr. Hunt next door talked my ear off about it yesterday. Sorry to invade your privacy, I just thought you might have something you wanted to tell me.” 

“Nope. Nothing at all. Just, uh, sowing my oats.” Was that what guys said to their dads about girls they slept with? 

“Uh huh.” The Sheriff leaned back in his chair, the creak of the old wood loud in the quiet kitchen. “That must have been fun.”

Stiles wasn’t really sure what to say to that. What was this conversation? It was weirding him out majorly. “Um. Yeah?”

“You go to a bar?”

Back to familiar territory. Stiles relaxed a bit. “Yep. Best place to meet people, barring the internet.” 

“I bet. Which one?”

“The cocktail bar. The one on Devon St.” As if there was more than one fancy cocktail lounge in Beacon Hills.

“Ah. Interesting. And impressive, considering it closed down two months ago.” 

Stiles winced and his face flamed with the realization that he was well and truly caught in a lie. There was no backing out of this one, or twisting it to look like he was only reclining in a horizontal position. He cleared his throat, focusing on his thumb where it dug into the dent in the corner of their ancient countertop. “Not much use for a cocktail lounge here when there’s a Hooters two towns over, right?” 

The Sheriff rolled his eyes, a gesture Stiles saw himself in. Or, really, it was the other way around. “Come on, now, Stiles. You gonna tell me about who you’re seeing?”

“What makes you think there’s somebody? I could be getting up to all sorts of--”

“I know you. And I know that goofy face you make at your phone during dinner isn’t for Scott. So someone is making you smile like that, and I want to know when I’m going to meet her.” 

Stiles licked his lips nervously as he searched for a half-truth to placate his father with. Sheriffs tended to be pretty good at spotting lies, so he figured he’d be best to not lie outright. 

“We’re taking it slow,” he decided on. Like, seven years in the making slow. 

“So slow you can’t even tell your dad you’re dating?” 

Stiles shrugged, hoping it came off as nonchalant instead of jerky and panicked. “We don’t want to make a big thing of it, in case it doesn’t work out. It’s still pretty new.” 

“That’s fair. Well, the secret’s out now, so spill. She from Beacon Hills? Do I know her?”

“Yes and...probably?” There went sticking to the truth. Though, if he wanted to get existential, he could tell himself that the Sheriff only knew part of Derek. Only Stiles, and maybe Cora had been down that deep well. 

The Sheriff snapped his fingers and pointed at him, grinning like he’d solved a puzzle. “It’s Sheila’s daughter, isn’t it? She’s been trying to get me to introduce you two for years, did you finally cave?”

“No, it’s not Sheila’s daughter,” Stiles sighed. Sheila’s daughter was as rainbow as Stiles was, he’d discovered in his last year at college. 

“What about that girl with the blue hair at the grocery store, she was looking at--”

“Dad, no. Stop guessing.” There was only so many girls his dad could list before he started wondering where Stiles was hiding her. “We want to keep it to ourselves for a little bit, in case it blows up in our faces.”

“I see.” For a second, Stiles thought he might be off the hook. No such luck. “Well, if you can’t say who she is, can you at least tell me about her? I want to know a little bit about the girl who’s got my son wrapped around her finger.” 

All the breath left Stiles’ body. He slumped back against the counter and smiled helplessly at the flood of little things he loved about Derek. There were so many, he had a hard time picking through which ones to share, and which to keep for himself. When he finally did choose, the words felt like sawdust in his throat, because for all he meant them, he had the wrong pronoun attached.

“She’s got green eyes. But sometimes blue, and sometimes brown. Funny as hell, but in a dry, subtle way that cracks me up all the same. Smart. So smart, but will she believe me? Never. Even when she’s got War and Peace on the nightstand for some light reading.” 

“Is she pretty?” The Sheriff said, softly. 

“Yeah.” His voice broke and fixed his eyes on the floor, hoping his dad thought it was from happiness. “Beautiful.” 

Stiles felt like the biggest prick in the world. He let his dad press him for more details, little things that wouldn’t give them away, tiny facets of Derek he treasured. With every admission, he hated himself a little bit more. He was assigning all these traits to a girl who didn’t exist, when he should be claiming them for their rightful owner. He was dishonouring what they had. Heaping a pile of bullshit onto the things he loved best about Derek. 

“Well, son, it seems to me like you’re pretty far gone on this girl.” The Sheriff leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and looking smug, for some reason. Maybe he was still sure the mystery girl was Blue Hair from the grocery store, and his purchase of two boxes of cowboy steaks inspired their romance. 

“Yep,” Stiles said. 

“And I’d be willing to bet you’ve mapped out your whole future with her, house and kids and everything.” 

“That’s right.” Stiles picked up his bowl from the sink again, adding soap to what was clearly a clean dish, just to busy his hands with something.

“So what’s the hold up? Why won’t you bring her around?”

Stiles’ shoulders slumped, and he tightened his grip on the pot scrubber. “Dad, I--”

“I know you said you’re taking it slow, but what’s the worst that can happen? You introduce me and it doesn’t work out? So be it. She doesn’t come back. But I don’t like when I’m not part of your life.” 

“I want you to be. It’s not that simple.”

“So simplify it for me. We spent way too long at each other’s throats because one of us wasn’t able to tell the other certain important details. I don’t want us to become like that again.”

And there was the guilt trip. They couldn’t have a disagreement of any kind without his dad bringing up the werewolf thing and passive-aggressively finding a way to make Stiles feel like a piece of human shit for trying to protect him. Nobody guilted like John Stilinski, not even Scott. (Grandma Stilinski was the only person Stiles had ever met who’d been better at it. Stiles’ clearest memory of her was of him crying on her lap because he’d felt so bad that he didn’t want one of her gross Polish candies.)

“Dad, this is not even close to the same situation.” Stiles tried to employ his dad’s own strategy of keeping his voice quiet and even, though he wanted to scream with frustration and run up to his room to bury beneath the covers. “I can’t bring her around until she’s ready.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Does it matter? I don’t want--”

“Yep, that’s what I thought. You don’t want your old man to be a part of your life, even though you’re living in the same house, the same one you were raised in. I feel like I’m being disrespected.” 

Stiles hated it when his dad got this way. Every once in a while, the strict parenting style of Grandpa Stilinski would come through, in this _I’m your father, you’ll respect me because I’m the man of the house_ bullshit. The collar of Stiles’ shirt felt too tight, and his heart was racing. Words he didn’t think he was ready to say were clawing at his throat, waiting for a hairline fracture to form in his resolve before they spilled out. He gritted his teeth to keep them in.

“Dad, I _can’t_.”

“Why not? Is it because you’re embarrassed of your girl?”

Fury detonated in his chest, and Stiles slammed the bowl into the bottom of the sink, barely even noticing it crack down the centre. “No, Dad. It’s because Derek isn’t a girl.”

The kitchen had been quiet before, but after Stiles’ bombshell, it was hushed as a funeral home. Except for Mr. Hunt’s lawn mower. Stiles’ words hung between them like a spectre. Stiles could see the exact moment when the confusion cleared on his dad’s face, and the anger that had spurred him drained away into abject terror. He let the silence unspool, meeting his father’s shocked eyes until he couldn’t stand it any longer. 

“And I--” He faltered when his father flinched back. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” 

“Derek.” The Sheriff said it with no inflection. No emotion at all. Notably: Not happily.

“Yes.” There was no going back now. Even if he wanted to. He nodded, crossing his arms in front of himself, protectively, like making himself smaller would make the news less shocking. “I love him, Dad.” 

The Sheriff stood up, slowly and shakily, leaning on the table for support. “I need to…” His voice came out croaky, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m going to church.” 

It was only 7AM. Mass didn’t start until 9. His father probably just wanted to get away from him.

“Dad.” He held out a hand, unsure what he meant to do with it, but he stopped short when his dad clumsily walked to the coat rack for his jacket. 

“No, I have to go.”

Stiles took his hand back, knuckling away his tears. “Dad, wait, please. We should--”

“Stiles.” The Sheriff didn’t yell, but the finality of his tone left no room for argument. “I’m going to church now. I’ll be back.” 

Stiles could see his dad putting on his coat in the corner of his eye, but his vision blurred as he shrank back against the counter. He could feel the tears on his face, some drying and itchy, some fresh and hot, but he was too numb to wipe them away. Only the snap of the front door closing jolted him out of his state of shock. 

He stumbled over and sank into the chair his dad had just vacated. He pulled out his phone with shaking hands and tried to rein in his panic as he dialled out. He was living a nightmare. Of all the scenarios he’d run over and over in his head, this was one of the worst. Worse even than his dad immediately disowning him, screaming at him that he was a faggot and a sick freak. That, Stiles would know what to do with. He could scream right back until his voice was raw, and slam out the door himself in a blaze of righteous fury. 

He didn’t know what to do with this. The shadow of shock and despair his father had turned into the moment Stiles had told the truth. 

“‘H’lo?”

Stiles twitched at the scratchy voice in his ear. He’d forgotten he’d even called Derek. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a whistle of air, squeezed from his closed off windpipe. 

“Stiles, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

The first sob exploded from his chest, and after that, there was no stopping the avalanche. He heard a clatter over the line, then a beep, and wasn’t aware of anything else until a while later. Time must have passed. Derek couldn’t have teleported from his loft to Stiles’ kitchen, but he might have, for all Stiles was aware of the minutes going by. He found himself pulled up into a crushing hug, then enduring a pat down. Being checked for injuries. 

“‘m fine,” he mumbled into Derek’s neck. 

Derek stopped his patting and focused on holding Stiles tightly. “What happened?”

“My dad, he--” Stiles felt Derek tense up. “He was home when I got here.” 

Stiles heard Derek’s hard swallow next to his ear. “What did he say? Did you--”

“Yeah. I told him about us.” The tears he’d only just gotten a hold of started burning his eyelids again. “He walked out. He wouldn’t talk to me.” 

“Oh, Stiles.” Derek put his hand to the nape of Stiles’ neck and stroked his thumb through the short hair. He found a rhythm as Stiles shivered and held on for dear life while every structure of his life he’d ever built on the foundation of his father’s love shook apart.

**

Eventually, they left the kitchen. Stiles didn’t want to go back to Derek’s loft, because he knew that, eventually, his dad would come back. He thought if he exited the house, he wouldn’t be able to convince himself to come back, and he knew he and his dad weren’t finished. 

They laid down on Stiles’ childhood bed. Stiles curled into Derek chest and didn’t cry. He was still sad, but that wasn’t his primary emotion. He could never be sad about his love for Derek or about the facet of his identity he’d kept mostly to himself for so long. He wasn’t ashamed, or hating himself for anything other than putting off the inevitable. 

What he was was scared. For a long time, his dad was the most important person in his life. Even Scott, his brother in all but blood, would-- and did--take a back seat sometimes. It had been fine, because they were each other’s most important person, and they each looked out for the other’s well-being. They were survivors of the same traumas. The only two people in the world who remembered Claudia in her final days, as well as the years of health before. 

He honestly didn’t know if he’d be the same person without his dad as he was with him. Without his touchstone, the measure by which he gauged right and wrong, he was terrified that his own moral gray areas might overwhelm him. If Stiles ever fell off the rails, went on his own revenge spree like Peter or Jennifer, he worried that Scott couldn’t stop him. He worried even more that Derek wouldn’t. 

But if the moral compass he’d relied on all these years had such a flaw as hating the sin of loving freely without fear of death by stoning, maybe he shouldn’t put so much faith in it. 

He didn’t want to lose his dad. The thought made his heart clutch in his chest. But if the man who’d raised him, clothed and fed him, taught him to be the person he was couldn’t love him because of this one thing, then would he really want to call this man his father? If Stiles had to deny a piece of his soul in order to gain that love back, did he even want it? 

Derek left an hour later to go to work for a couple of hours. They were slammed, Derek said, but he could stay with Stiles if he was needed. Stiles refused. He didn’t want Derek to waste one of the sick days he never cashed in to lie on a bed with Stiles and make sure he was in a good place again. Only Stiles could get to that place, and he had a feeling it was going to take a lot longer than a single morning. 

After Derek left, Stiles’ early morning and the emotional upheaval caught up with him and he dozed lightly, jerking awake periodically and sinking deeper into dread with every hour that passed. Mass was definitely over by now, had been since Derek left. There was nothing keeping his dad at the church, now, except the unwillingness to face his son. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and it made him wince with each glance at the dusty alarm clock.

Just past noon, when Stiles was about to give up and go back to Derek’s, he heard his dad’s cruiser pull up and the door open downstairs. He sat up on the bed, but couldn’t move any farther. He probably looked like shit. His hair was even crazier than it’d been earlier, his clothes were beyond wrinkled, his eyes hadn’t lost their bleariness, and had gained red rims. He leaned on his knees, clasping his hands together and staring at the carpet while his dad opened the door and sat down gingerly on the bed next to him. 

The last time they’d suffered through a long, painful silence, Stiles had broken it. He refused to do so this time. He couldn’t think of anything to say, regardless. His dad leaned heavily on his knees, mirroring his son, probably unintentionally. The only difference was that Stiles’ hands were pressed together to keep them from trembling, and the Sheriff’s, from being accustomed to folding them in prayer. 

“I talked to Father Simon,” his dad finally said to the carpet that still held the pattern of his footprints. “I told him what you said, and who you say you are.” 

“What did he say?” 

Stiles could guess. He hadn’t seen Father Simon since he stopped coming to church, but he’d been old then, so he must be ancient now. He was unlikely to have lost his solemn, unyielding disapproval of pretty much everyone. He was a bit like Deaton, actually, which might explain why Stiles distrusted Deaton so much. 

“He told me that…” The Sheriff’s words failed him, and he let his head hang low between his shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was low and rough. “He told me that homosexuals are an abomination. That it goes against the will of God, you’re confused, and you’ll grow out of it. He said that tough love was the best way to fix it. That I should tell you you’re not welcome in my house, a god-fearing house, until you put these demons out of your head.”

Surprise wasn’t present in the bouquet of feelings coursing through Stiles in that moment. Disappointment. Regret. Anger. They were all rearing their ugly heads, but shock? No. He unclasped his white-knuckled hands and wiped them off on his thighs. He wanted to be able to shake his father’s hand with a strong, dry grip when he walked out of there. He prepared to stand up to make the long walk down the stairs, past the family pictures and framed diplomas, but his dad spoke again, so softly Stiles had to strain to hear. 

“Stiles. He’s known you all your life. He baptised you. Gave you your first communion. He watched you grow up through the pictures I showed him after you couldn’t come back anymore. He knew what kind of man you grew into from the stories I told when I went to confession.”

Stiles swallowed as he watched his father part his hands and twist the ring on his finger. Some of the first words Stiles had ever read had been the inscription on the inside of his parents’ rings. _Let us love, then,_ for he first loved us, they read, from 1 John 4:19. It was a passage that had followed them throughout their marriage, a reminder that their happy life was possible only through God’s love and his guiding hand. It was underlined in his mother’s bible, the page dogeared and worn from rereading. He remembered going back to it as an adult, and feeling a flicker of hope that those words would help his dad keep loving him when he finally came out. 

He felt that same hopeful flicker again now. His breath stopped entirely as he watched his dad’s face crumple, then smooth out into a picture of determination. 

“I won’t sit by while my son is called an abomination,” he said. Air rushed back into Stiles’ lungs, filling them completely for what felt like the first time in hours. “I’m not going back. I can’t be a part of any group that would have me turn you away for any reason. I don’t believe that _my_ God would condemn you for loving who you love.”

The Sheriff looked like a man whose worldview had been torn down, then remade entirely, dragging him along for the ride. His eyes were tired, tense and as red as Stiles’. But when Stiles looked into them, he saw the same love shining out that he’d always seen. 

“Dad,” Stiles choked, then he lunged forward into his dad’s arms, wrapping his own around his waist. His dad rocked him slightly as they got each other’s shoulders wet. 

“I love you,” the Sheriff said, strangled with emotion. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay. I love you too.” 

It was a little hard to adjust to it, but Stiles thought they _would_ be okay. His dad had a lot of soul searching and gear-shifting to do, but Stiles would be there to help him. He was good at research. He could search his mom’s bible for the passages to put him on the right track. 

“You’d better bring Derek over so I can meet him properly,” the Sheriff said, when they parted, wiping their faces surreptitiously and sniffing manfully. “We can take him to visit your mother. She would love him.” 

“I think she would too.” 

John Stilinski had strong hands. He’d used them to handcuff criminals, to comfort victims, and to care for his wife as she lay dying. Until the day he died, they would still fold tightly in prayer every night. But they would just as easily, and lovingly, hold his only son’s hands.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :) Thanks also to my beta, [ SylvieW ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvieW/pseuds/SylvieW) for soothing my neuroses.
> 
> I have a couple TW fics in the works:  
> >Sterek Human AU, Personal Trainer Derek with an angsty twist  
> >Vaguely Historical Peter/Lydia
> 
> To be notified when those fics start happening, subscribe! And any comments, constructive or otherwise appreciated.


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